Saturday, February 16, 2013

Birding in Shivanahalli was a long time dream for me. I had seen different blogs and bngbirds group visiting this place and mentioning how pristine it is there. I had also heard from friend the good work being done by the Ramakrishna mission in the area.

This Sunday we planned to visit this place. Initially 5 of us wanted to go there but only 3 of us managed to go there. Thanks to Deepa from BngBirds group for helping me getting the permission from the swamy who is managing the mission. And I'm grateful to Swamy for giving us the permission to enter the campus.

The entire campus is very very beautiful. Swamy has put so much effort to get the trees from different places in India and planting them here. Also the school being run by the mission is very very good. The personal attention being given to each kid is something which most of the big schools would not be able to match. The kids seemed to enjoy the classes.

We started very early in the morning and reached the place by 6:30AM. Swamy arranged for a tea for us. He is also very knowledgable person who could tell scientific names of most of the trees without thinking twice.

After meeting the Swamy and having the tea we entered the park area. It was very beautiful. The first bird that we saw was a Veriditer Flycatcher and then the second sighting was Asian Paradise Flycatcher male(Rufous). It was an amazing sight. We got some photos but not good. This was my first sighting of a male APFC. APFC in flight is something I will cherish my entire life. Its like someone is running a ribbon in the air. Very beautiful.

After spending sometime with APFC we proceeded to see more birds. Our next sighting was a bunch of Whiteeyes. This time the birds were all around us. We were mobbed by atleast 30-40 whiteyes. After this, my next sighting was Gold Fronted Leafbirds. They were bunch of them feeding on small fruits. They were spending time in company with orioles and sunbirds. This was my first sighting of Leaf Birds.

After this we saw different flycatchers, Ioras, drongos, Grey Hornbills, bulbuls and other birds. I was able to see white APFC and female too. All in all an amazing trip.

At the end of the trip we visited the lab maintained there and they have a collection of different butterflies. Started back at around 2:30PM.